“I would not trap you into marriage,” she told him.
“I do not doubt it,” he said. “Though trapped would not be a pleasant word to use if there really were a child, would it?”
She did not answer him. But she did move off him to lie beside him. He reached for her hand and they laced their fingers.
“Must it end, then?” she asked him.
He did not answer immediately.
“Would it be a terrible disaster to you,” he asked her, “to be with child? To have to marry me?”
“Not a disaster,” she said. For a long time, while she had been living at Leyland Abbey, she had thought her life might be bearable if only she had a baby, though after Matthew was injured and came home, she had been deeply thankful that there was none. “Would it be a disaster to you?”
“If there were a child,” he said, “I would not want to have to remember for the rest of my life that I had once called the possibility of his or her conception a disaster. Neither of us wants marriage, and the circumstances would make it difficult for us to marry even if we did want it. However, the needs of any child of mine will always come first in my life, and a child needs father and mother if it is humanly possible—married to each other and loving each other.”
He spoke in a soft voice, obviously choosing his words with care. Samantha felt a deep welling of … grief? No, it was not grief. But it was something that made her ache with a nameless longing and brought tears to her eyes and the soreness of unshed tears to her throat.
… married to each other and loving each other.
How wonderful it would be to be loved by Benedict Harper and to share a child with him. If only the circumstances were different …
She rested her temple against his shoulder. It was not supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be having a brief affair, entirely for pleasure.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him.
“We promised each other a week of lovemaking,” he said, “before we pick up the threads of our own separate lives. Shall we keep that promise and deal with any consequences that may arise if and when they do arise?”
She knew something then with a terrible clarity. She knew she was not made for casual affairs. She had thought after the first numbness of loss following Matthew’s death had passed that all she wanted was to be free, to live. But all she really wanted to do, all she had ever wanted to do, was to love. And, if possible, to be loved.
Instead, she had begun an affair, something that by its very nature was temporary. Something that was purely carnal. Something that would leave her more bereft than she had ever felt before.
Unless there was a child.
Yet she must hope that there would not be, for she would not wish to bind him to her on such terms.
He squeezed her hand.
“I do not doubt,” he said, “that there will be people to take note of the exact minute and hour at which I return to the inn. I would not be so late that it will be obvious I have done more here than dine with you and sit afterward over tea and conversation.”
He leaned closer and kissed her on the lips, and then she swung her legs over the far side of the bed, got to her feet, and found her nightgown and dressing gown.
“I shall see you downstairs,” she said and left him to get dressed.
She walked out to the barn with him fifteen minutes or so later in her slippers and dressing gown while Tramp galloped about the garden, delighted to have an outing he had not been expecting. She waited while Ben hitched up the horse to the gig.
He spread one arm to her before climbing in, and she stepped close to him and hugged him. He kissed her and smiled down at her in the moonlight.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For?”
“For making me feel like a man again,” he said.
“You always seem very much like one to me,” she said, and she saw the flash of his smile in the darkness.
“Thank you,” he said again, and he climbed slowly into the gig, settled his canes, gathered the ribbons in his hands, glanced at her once more, and gave the horse the signal to start.
“Good night, Samantha,” he said.
“Good night, Ben.”
She did shed tears after he had gone and after she could neither see nor hear the gig any longer. She could not help but think of the fact that in a week’s time it would be goodbye, not just good night.
What had she done?
19
The weather conspired in their favor. The sun shone from a cloudless sky for the next four days, and the air was unseasonably warm.
Samantha walked into the village one morning, and they borrowed the gig from the inn and drove across the bridge and along the narrow lane above the beach, stopping several times to look at the boats and breathe in the sea air. Ben chatted with a small group of fishermen while Samantha got out to take the dog for a short walk. They had luncheon together at the inn, Mrs. Price having been warned that her mistress would not be back at the cottage.
On the following morning an old friend of Miss Bevan’s called at the cottage with her daughter to make Samantha’s acquaintance. Ben heard all about the visit when he drove over later in the gig.
“They want me to go for tea one afternoon,” she told him. “And you too, Ben, if you are still here. They were very kind. Mrs. Tudor told me so many stories about my great-aunt that I feel I almost knew her myself.”
“You will go?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. “I will go as soon as—Well, as soon as I have a free afternoon.”